Have we reached the end of hardware synths with software plug-ins?

[kritikon]

These but Eurorack modules instead of books

I was salivating already just with the books. But yeah - replace that with electronics...oh yeah.

[elxsound]

These but Eurorack modules instead of books

[kritikon]

I think I just leaked...

[kritikon]

I have no idea what it sounds like but I want to hear it.

[BONES]

If you want portable, you're still lugging a lot around you don't need - just use an iPad with some headphones.

When did iPads start running Studio One and all my VSTs? The thing with a laptop is that it can be your only computer, the one you use fo reverything, yet you can tak eit anywhere and work on all the sam ematerial you work on in your studio.

I'd suggest an Uno Synth and headphones is even more portable than an iPad but, like the iPad, it's not terribly useful when you have shit to do.

There's no reason for physicality to limit the number of synths you have...

Well, there is. You can't interact with them easily. That's probabl ythe main reason I don't use any in my studio. It's not the space, it's the space. MY Roli controllers wrap around the sides of my laptop. They are as easy to get at as the laptop keyboard, so everything is literally at my fingertips. When I still had a big hardware set-up, I was constantly up and down between the computer and the keyboard stand. That meant the stand itself became a hard limit on how much hardware I could have set up and still be able to actually use.

When I was set up like that, with both the computer and most of my old (big) hardware, it was the least musically productive period of my "career" and I think that up and down thing was a big part of that. Once I committed to working 100% ITB, things started moving forward again because it made it much easier to concentrate on what I was doing and everything flowed more smoothly.

Once you get beyond that manageable limit, it's time to admit that you're just a hoarder.

[kritikon]

No problem being a hoarder. Productivity - what's that? TBH I never really had any musical goals. Actually I probably play with my hw more on its own rather than connected to the DAW - simply for playing and making weird noises. Making songs has always been way down on the list...different horses. If I had a studio so large that I couldn't hear the speakers at the far end, then it might bother me, but the further away I get from the mouse or laptop...the better IMO.

[kritikon]

I even tried recently to make an effort to actually do a full track. Thought I'd do some trippy dub and got so far, but once I've got the drums down, the bassline, the guitar rhythm...I just lost interest once I started getting the trippy delay synth lines. I had huge fun doing that part but the idea of making it into a track just felt like a chore. Probably exactly because I find the nitty gritty like drums, bassline and rhythm being such a chore - I'd already expended any patience I had with it. It's still sat inside my laptop from 2 months ago.

[fisherKing]

I have no idea what it sounds like but I want to hear it.

it sounds like 18 mick jaggers....

[Uncle E]

I even tried recently to make an effort to actually do a full track. Thought I'd do some trippy dub and got so far, but once I've got the drums down, the bassline, the guitar rhythm...I just lost interest once I started getting the trippy delay synth lines. I had huge fun doing that part but the idea of making it into a track just felt like a chore. Probably exactly because I find the nitty gritty like drums, bassline and rhythm being such a chore - I'd already expended any patience I had with it. It's still sat inside my laptop from 2 months ago.

If I can't finish a track in one sitting, it's never getting finished.

[BONES]

OTOH, I spend months finishing each and every song. I keep coming back to them, trying out new things and refining existing elements until I am satisfied it's as good as I can make it. I don't care how long it takes, as long as it's as good as I can make it. And the thing is, in that first flush of creativity everything always sounds wonderful. It's only when you've listened to it 100 times, then left it alone for a week or two and come back to it that you can be objective about it. If I stopped working on a song the first time I thought it was finished, instead of the 50th time, our stuff wouldn't sound half as good as it does.

No problem being a hoarder. Productivity - what's that? TBH I never really had any musical goals. Actually I probably play with my hw more on its own rather than connected to the DAW - simply for playing and making weird noises.

I realised a while ago that I haven't got any pleasure from that in a long, long time. These days I need something to work from, something to get me motivated. That's why NOVAkILL works so well - my bandmate is a tinkerer, he likes to load up something he hasn't used before and try to make something from it. When he gets something going, he pretty quickly loses interest in it and passes it on to me so he can tinker with the next thing. That gives me something to work from and I can spend the next few days obsessively turning it into a song. After that I will happily spend the next several months refining it, along with other songs, until it's good enough to release.

I find I always like to have something to work with, that starting from scratch or just playing around feels like a waste of time. I had put my 80s covers thing aside before Xmas, to concentrate on getting a new album finished this year but I ran into a bit of a hole so I went back to the covers and realised how much work they all still need. So I started tweaking those until I was happy, then I needed something else to do so I started working up more MIDI files into songs. Even there, I find most of the MIDI files are pretty rough, even some I have paid for, and I reckon I could probably work them up from scratch myself with less effort. But the thing is, I know I'd never get started if I tried to do that, whereas the MIDI file gives me a bit of instant gratification and that gets me going. In the last week I've got Girl U Want, Love Song and Promised You A Miracle up and running. I imagine I'll put them aside again soon and, after the album's out, I'll start loading them up again and hearing all sorts of things that aren't right in them. I find it far more enjoyable than writing a new song, which is kinda sad.

[machinesworking]

Personally I've finished songs in a day or two, and finished songs after years of putting off or coming back to it. Typically it's a couple weeks then some other amount of time before mixing and mastering depending on if others are part of the process or not. There is routine, it's just not cut and dried.

One thing I don't get that gets expressed is this hatred of the computer part of the songwriting process, it's slightly insane to me. If you're working with VSTs and a DAW spending too much time pretending you're not doing that is just counterproductive.

I've used Push 2 and Live on and off for years, and the parts that try really hard to disengage you from the laptop are just more work than they should be. Mixing wise Macro knobs like Push has and touch screens are IMO miles better than automated faders or mice, but you simply aren't going to beat a mouse for selecting a VST, preset scrolling sucks on controllers as well, at least as long as a VST has up/down arrow jumping, because you get that level of control along with jumping to a certain preset via mouse. MIDI editing is also easier with a mouse.

Everyone seems to like cut and dried rules, they certainly help when you're confronted with too many choices, but IMO "rules" can also get in the way.

[BONES]

Do you do mixing as a separate process? How does that work? I start mixing from the time I add a second instrument, right through until I've rendered a finished master. And if you are mixing as a separate process, what are you doing before you start mixing?

[YnJ]

I sold most of my hardware synths from the 80's a while back, judging from the interest and the prices I got for them people are still interested in hardware synths

[BONES]

You wouldn't have any trouble unloading a 1923 Rolls Royce, either, but that doesn't make them popular, just rare. You have to remember that most of those old things were hand built, so the numbers made are sometimes in the hundreds, not thousands.

[foosnark]

I can just imagine what the largest Eurorack setup looks like and what it must cost.

Martin Gore is who usually comes up but he has gone through some cycles of selling stuff off and then building it back up, so it's hard to say.

Lester Barnes (who mostly does film/TV scores) is probably up there. Here's one of his three 27U cases from a few years ago:



I don't want to bother working out how many HP wide that is. There are three of them, plus an 18U all Analogue Systems case. 432 modules, he said. Plus he has a wall of 5U, some Serge, and more obscure formats.

I know for scoring work, sometimes people leave gear in an exact state for the entire run of the show, over multiple seasons, for whatever slight variations they need to make. Modular seems like exactly the wrong tool for that job though, and having this much stuff seems almost obscene somehow.